Gutters: Issue #285 – Samir Barrett

I thought it was a little strange when Chris Roberson threw his Twitter-party the other day about his “last DC script.” There was something about it that just didn’t sit right with me and it was no surprise to hear that DC had released him from any further obligations after hearing about it.

While I understand his position all that really came to mind was “easy for you to say.”

Chris Roberson has a successful career as a novelist and is in a decent position to burn a bridge in a very small industry. Truthfully, I wish that more creators in comics had secure enough income that they could stand up and do the same thing. Then the larger publishing companies might be compelled to deal with their creators better, which seems to be Roberson’s beef in the first place.

While I admire Roberson for standing up for what he percieves to be right, I can’t help but be a little turned off by the way he did it. There’s no winners here. Roberson looks somewhat petty, DC looks like the big meanies pushing around the little guy and in the end it’s the readers who lose the most.

Maybe it’s naive of me to think, but… can’t we all just get along?

In that spirit, today’s page was a joint effort from two guys who definitely get along, Dave Wheeler and Samir Barrett:

Dave Wheeler is a man with a plan, his plan according to a 3rd grade report was to become a comic book drawer guys, move into the Twin Cities of his native Minnesota and get a dog. So far he is 3 for 3. Dave is trying to bring a little light back into the dark gritty world of mainstream comics by being not so mainstream. Following in the footsteps of some of his childhood heroes like Mike Allred, J. Scott Campbell and Humberto Ramos, he set fourth into the independent / alternative scene with his own creation. Today alongside the awesomely talented Samir Barrett, Dave runs and works on all titles put out by the all ages kid friendly brand he helped co-found with Barrett; MIND WAVE COMICS. While others were deep in thought of academic brilliance Dave dreamed of a world with superheroes, Ape detectives fighting Nazi Dinosaurs. Strange? No. Awesome? YES!

Samir Barrett is a recent graduate from SCAD who studied in Animation and Sequential Art. Now out of school, whenever he’s not surviving at his day job in Savannah, Georgia he’s constantly drawing and producing creator owned comics. As the second creative half to “Mind Wave Comics”, Samir finds himself drawing on the book “The Misadventures of Wonderboy” and drawing and writing for his own creation “The Bolt Strikes”.